FC Timisoara’s new coach is Vladimir Petrovic

Timisoara ended all speculation and presented the former Red Star Belgrade coach Vladimir Petrovic as Ioan Ovidiu Sabau’s successor, in spite of all the rumors that involved the ex-trainer of CFR Cluj, Maurizio Trombetta. The 54 years old will be unveiled on Wednesday, in a press conference, but he already presented some of his plans, settled during the three rounds of talks with Daniel Stanciu, Timisoara’s team manager: he’ll have around six months to adjust, know the players and implement the ideas that should lead the Viola club to bigger success than the 3rd place occupied at the end of last season, but he obviously stated that he hopes to make the team play offensive, attractive and successful football even sooner.

Dinamo Bucharest made an interesting signing, after the promising keeper Cristian Balgradean agreed to sign a five years long deal with teh Red Dogs. The goalie has big chances to be followed by a former colleague from UTA, George Tucudean. The U19 national team centre forward asked for a few days to think things through, as, in spite of Bratu’s loan to Lovech, the competition upfront is still very tough and he’ll probably end up playing for the reserves…

A surprising decision became public today, with Ionut Buzean refusing the chance to play Champions League football next season for Debrecen. Offered a three years long deal by the Hungarian club, the left back agreed to sign a new deal with Medias “convinced to be playing European football in two or three years time”.

FC Vaslui and Universitatea Craiova are among the clubs that still try to find new coaches. If the Romanian Cup finalist – abandoned by Marius Lacatus – is in advanced talks with Ioan Ovidiu Sabau, Universitatea looked at Cristiano Bergodi, but the Italian’s demands forced the club to discuss also with Antonio Conceicao and Zoran Filipovic – the Serbian who failed to avoid relegation with Ceahlaul asking for a monthly wage of around 10.000 Euros.

Radu Baicu

• 15 years of continuous work in scouting, for top clubs and companies;
• Worked for clubs like Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Hannover 96, covering the Romanian market;
• Worked for Birmingham based company ‘The Scouting Network’ (www.tsn.co.uk) as a football scout;
• Worked for Zurich based company Boutique Football as a scouting network coordinator;
• International scout for Young Boys Bern for 2 years, covering Eastern European football.
• Working for the past 5 years as an international scout for a top French club.